


Ohio and the Exile

by heyabooboo



Series: Post-Apocalyptic Club of Kickass survivors [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV), The Domestics (2018)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Swearing, brief mention of chris argent, brief mention of ennis - Freeform, brief mention of isaac's dad, brief mention of paige, emotional breakdown with dissociation, fallout references re: ghouls, fallout references re: vaults, pop culture references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 02:57:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15572166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyabooboo/pseuds/heyabooboo
Summary: "I'm in shock." Stiles finally puts the pieces together, but he still finds his eyes going unfocused as he reflects and tries to compartmentalize the trauma of the day. Derek nods, his voice low as he speaks words that don’t make sense to Stiles. He doesn't know what to do, doesn’t know how to make himself understand those words, so he lets himself drift: sits on the toilet lid and watches the bruise slowly disappear from Derek’s exposed collarbone until it’s like it was never there in the first place.





	Ohio and the Exile

**Author's Note:**

> Oh jeez, this thing got away from me. Initially, I was going to post it into two chapters, but I'm not such a big fan of doing that to you guys. So here you go, Part Two of the PACK(s) series, in it's glorious 5k glory! (And suspend your disbelief just for a second and roll with NYU having a good criminal justice department.)
> 
> And before I forget, a big thank you to everyone who kudos-ed and commented on the last one!! I loved receiving those notifications!

They make it through most of Ohio relatively unscathed. The state doesn't seem like a place a lot of people are sticking to, which is great, because they're literally treating it as a fly-over state or -- well, as a drive-through state... but that gives it the connotation that there's something from there that they really wanted (and oh _God_ that brings back memories of 3am McFlurries and Stiles hates that any ice cream left in the world has long since melted), when in truth, the only thing they wanted was to _get out_ of the state as soon as possible. They're nearing the border into Indiana when they come across a small town that seems safe enough to stop in.  
  
"We should rest here for the night. Stock up, loot."  Derek had pulled them into one of the gas stations, and Stiles can see from the car that the convenience store is still massively stocked. Hot damn they hit the jackpot on that. That means _beef jerky_ and a _soda_. Even if the Mountain Dew is warm, Stiles'll drink it.

He doesn't look too closely as to just why this one place was kept so pristine until it's too late: it's overrun by ghouls, apparently making their nest in the small town and sticking to it. the ghouls don't like that they're apparently creeping in on their territory and a fight ensues with a staggering amount of them that Stiles never wants to see again. Allison provides backup with her rifle as best she can and a new guy shows up in the middle of the chaos with a shotgun and a baseball bat that he gives to Stiles after he helps him up from being knocked down.  
  
"Shit," the new guy breathes, bent over at the waist, heaving in air after the last of the enemies goes down. He's got a black eye that's still purple in the middle but it's edges are yellow and his curls look soft in the afternoon sun. "Those motherfuckers are scary. I think I'd rather deal with Raiders."  
  
He introduces himself as Isaac and squints in Allison's direction, complimenting them on her usefulness. Derek does all the talking because Stiles' ears are still ringing from going down so hard and words take too long to understand. They stay there, stepping over the bodies to get to the motel 6 across the street that still has keys behind the desk and Stiles blinks and misses the whole conversation when Allison finally approaches. Later, he’s upset that once again he’s indisposed when she’s near - he has so many questions - but on autopilot, he follows Derek’s lead.

He doesn't realize he's in shock until he finally resurfaces in the bathroom, Derek's face stark in the lighting from the sun setting through the window in the mainroom from the door at Stiles’ back. Stiles’ eyes look him over, getting stuck where he has blood on his shirt and it's torn at the collar, exposing his collarbone where a massive bruise has formed. Something in his brain tells him the bone’s broken, but Derek doesn't seem to be worried about it, since his attention is on Stiles' face, wiping it clean with a soft bandana they didn’t have before stopping at the town.

"You're hurt." Stiles says, and Derek's suddenly on high alert, eyes focused and intense as he gazes at him. Stiles can't bear to look at them for longer than just a few seconds before his eyes are darting away, only to come back again. They dance like that for long seconds until Derek breaks and moves again, turning to rinse the cloth in the sink with a bottle of water. It’s cold on his forehead when he comes back, gently scrubbing at his hairline.  
  
"So are you." Derek's voice sounds like the desert, and Stiles eyes his face while he seems distracted with whatever it is that's going on in his hair. Derek's throat moves, apparently having trouble swallowing if his numerous attempts are anything to go by. "I'll heal soon," he promises, and Stiles' eyes dart down to his collarbone again, the skin looking less bruised by the second.  "More worried about you."

"I'm in shock." Stiles finally puts the pieces together, but he still finds his eyes going unfocused as he reflects and tries to compartmentalize the trauma of the day. Derek nods, his voice low as he speaks words that don’t make sense to Stiles. He doesn't know what to do, doesn’t know how to make himself understand those words, so he lets himself drift, lets Derek stitch the wound on his head with a little bit of local anesthetic applied. Ironically enough, it’s orajel he’s using and it’s fucking amazing, Stiles doesn’t feel a thing. But if that’s more the dissociative state he’s in than the numbing agent, Stiles doesn’t know. He just sits on the toilet lid and watches the bruise slowly disappear from Derek’s exposed collarbone until it’s like it was never there in the first place.

Robotically, he changes clothes when Derek leaves him fresh ones folded next to the sink and clicks the bathroom door closed to give Stiles some privacy. The mirror is spotless over the vanity and Stiles strips down, catalogues all the wounds that are starting to show: the bruise that hurts when he expands his ribs in a large breath, the three neat stitches at his temple, the other cuts that sprinkle over his face and torso, both knees skinned, all of them glistening with antibiotic ointment Stiles doesn’t remember Derek applying. He doesn't ask where the clothes come from when he comes back out of the bathroom; he doesn’t want to know. Just more borrowed clothes from dead people and he stands there for long minutes, gaze going unfocused on the carpet.

Those were people out there, dead in the street. Rabid assholes of people, but once upon a time, they _had been_ _people_ , with hopes and dreams. And Stiles killed them, has flashes of jaws breaking under the bat, of Stiles taking that life away. His dirty and bloody clothes have been left in a pile on the floor in the bathroom and Stiles’ brain gets stuck in a loop, imagining what kind of lives those people must’ve had, before The Reset while his eyes slowly move around the room.

Finally, his brain seems to come out of the haze and snaps-to, the room coming into focus. It's a one-bed and there's a candle lit at the desk where Derek sits, back to him, bent over writing. Stiles can hear the motion of his arm traveling across the paper, Derek’s writing that fast. There’s nothing else that grasps his attention, so he stays standing there, swaying gently as he watches Derek finally take pause, sighing. The candle flickers. The tale of the three little pigs and the wolf huffing at their houses has Stiles tiredly pulling the corners of his lips up as his brain fills in the image of Derek trying to puff a building down.

The scratch of Derek’s fingers against his stubble as he rubs his cheek brings Stiles back into reality. Words have seemed to come back to him at the same time focus did, and he realizes how thirsty he is when he licks his lips, mouth dry. “What’re you writing?” he asks, and his voice sounds all wrong in the silence, harsh to his own ears. Derek turns and he’s changed too, with a new shirt over his shoulders, the plaid pajama pants from House Number Four fitting him better than they fit Stiles as he stands and comes closer.

“Journaling what happened today,” huh. Stiles didn’t even know Derek kept a journal. “Keeping track of supplies, bullets and things.” Derek’s eyes go up to his stitches and come back down, still intense but the edge of it is dulled by the candlelight that’s backlighting him. “How are you feeling?” Derek asks and Stiles has to force himself to blink, to stay _here_ , in focus from where he’d drifted again, watching the light flicker over Derek’s shoulder.

“Thirsty.” he says after making his brain process Derek’s question. His throat hurts with the word. “Tired, too. Exhausted, actually.” he thinks of slipping into darkness, resting, and he doesn’t realize his eyes have slid shut until Derek’s hand is warm on his elbow and he forces them back open. “Isaac found some Gatorade and candy at the gas station. Let’s see if you can keep that down.”

Suddenly he remembers being bent over, retching into dry grass on his knees - it must’ve been when he skinned them, simultaneously ripping the jeans open with the force of the fall - and he swallows the taste of bile back down. He frowns when he comes back and realizes he’s lost more time, now sitting on the bed, Derek harrumphing as he opens the bottle of sports drink next to him. Jesus, he needs to get a grip, he’s a liability like this.

“Drink this. Small sips.” Derek offers the open bottle to him and he takes it, follows the directions laid out to him, even manages to eat a few peanut m&m’s as he slowly drinks half the bottle.

“I’m sorry.” he says without preamble and Derek’s head snaps up from where he’s gently pushing around the m&m’s into groups of their colors on the sheets under them, idly chewing away at one. He gives Stiles the most confused expression and Stiles feels the beginning of tears prickling behind his eyes and making his nose itch.

“For what?” Derek asks and Stiles hiccups, trying to hold back the sobs of panic that’ve threatened to tear down the walls of his throat since the world ended. His tears hang onto his eyelashes as he squeezes his eyes closed, ashamed, trying to push them back, push them down, away from the surface. “Stiles --”

“-- For everything! For being stupid and for getting you into this mess and putting us in danger.” he sniffles and the snot is thick, making him cough, stealing his breath for a second. It trips up his heart and suddenly he’s hyperventilating, one of Derek’s hands cradling his neck, the other covering Stiles’ hand where he has it pressed against his chest.

“Feel me breathing, breathe with me. It’s okay, it’s okay.” Derek’s repeating and it takes everything in Stiles to listen, to resurface from the panic and fight against it until he’s back, reality focused again. Derek’s thumb makes one final swipe of his cheek before his hand goes still at the back of his neck, but he doesn’t remove Stiles’ hand from his chest, and Stiles makes no move, either. Derek is lit from the side, looking seven shades of handsome in the gloomy lighting and Stiles’ heart seizes again. Shit shit shit, his emotions are all over the place. He _needs to get a grip_.

Derek’s eyes widen just slightly and dart down to his chest before they’re right back, watching his eyes. “Is it ebbing or coming back?” he asks and it’s like a buoy in the receding sea of panic, just that little bit of reaction. Stiles grips ahold of it, using it for the distraction it is.

“Your hearing’s so good that you can listen to my heart?” Stiles asks and it’s just another obvious attempt at avoiding The Current Issue, but Derek nods, allowing it.

“Yeah, it’s how... normally I can keep track of things, things around us, but I couldn’t, today --” Derek’s looking guiltier by the second, so Stiles does the only thing he can think of: pester with questions. _Learn_.

“-- What else can you do?” He doesn’t know why it’s taken him this long to ask about any of Derek’s other abilities, just that now feels like the right time. Derek looks torn for a moment before he’s finally moving his hands away from touching Stiles - _grounding him_ , he realizes - and leans, reaching to the floor where he must’ve placed Stiles’ Gatorade when he’d slipped into his panic attack. He hands it back to him after Stiles pulls his hand away from where he’d still had it on his chest and Derek offers him another candy. He takes it, stuffs it into his cheek for it to soften there before it can melt on his tongue.

“I can see better, farther, than humans. I can scent the air. Um, I’m stronger.” he shrugs and then motions at his collarbone, now covered by the new shirt, “Quicker healing, but you knew that.” Stiles hums as the candy crunches between his teeth while he chews in thought. Derek eyes him, watching as Stiles finishes the drink, reaches for another piece of candy. “You handled the fact that I was a werewolf with surprising grace.”

Stiles finds himself chuckling, Derek’s observation hitting his funny bone more than striking him as a critical jab at his psyche. “Yeah,” he sighs, fingers coming up to pinch at the skin of his chin, rub his thumb over his jaw as he thinks, shrugs, “well, the world had just ended as we knew it and this Greek God was saving me from people who were talking about what they were gonna loot from my corpse, not to mention the giant _thing_ with _claws_.” he motions to Derek when he talks about his first impression and surprisingly, Derek just ducks his chin and huffs out another breath, smile warm on his face and cheeks ruddy with a blush.

“What - are you _blushing_ right now? Because I called you a Greek God?” _oh god, Stiles, shut up_ , he tells himself, “What’d you do before The Reset? You must’ve modeled or something, I mean your _biceps_ alone--” finally, _finally_ he makes himself quit talking and Derek, still smiling though the grin is bigger now and making his eyes crinkle at the sides where his cheeks are pushing up, looks genuinely flattered and Stiles just knows that he’s gonna age like a fine wine, the bastard.

Derek has to clear his throat before he answers, “Actually, I was at NYU, studying to be a criminal profiler.”

Stiles jaw drops, “Bullshit.” he turns until he’s mirroring Derek’s stance, one leg curled under the other, a foot still on the ground to the side of the bed.

He chuckles and ducks his head again, “It’s true. I was, uh, I was home, in Upstate -- you know Saratoga Springs?” at Stiles’ nod, Derek continues, “Yeah, my family owns some land up there and I was visiting. When The Reset happened.”

The amazement of the two of them not only going to the same school but also studying subjects adjacent to each other - which, he’ll have to actually sit down and think about the math of the odds of that later - slowly dissipates and he swallows the sadness of the word _family_. “I’m sorry,” Stiles apologizes and at another one of Derek’s confused frowns, explains, “That they’re gone, that you lost them.”

Derek’s frown turns deeper, “What? They-they’re _still alive_ , Stiles.” it’s quiet as Stiles lets that sink in, mouth moving on silent vowels, until his words finally burst from him.

“What? Then why aren’t you with them? What - _oh my God_ , do not say it’s because of me. I’m already dealing with a lot of guilt and that’ll just be too much, man, that’ll send me over the edge.”

Derek shrugs. Stiles stares. “I wasn’t the only one who left. My Uncle Peter, he took off up North to go back home to get his wife and their pups. Laura’s -- well, she _was_ in Seattle when it happened. I don’t know where she is, but I know she’s still alive, too.”

He scoffs. It’s not that he’s doubting that Derek believes it, he’s doubting it to actually be true. “How? You got a werewolf tracker in your pocket I don’t know about?” Derek squints at him like he can’t fathom Stiles’ thoughts. That’s fair - sometimes Stiles can’t even make sense of them, and they’re his own.

“No, I can feel them: the pack.” his fingers group together to a point and he taps his chest, over his heart. “Just like I know Cora’s still alive in South America and Izzy’s in Europe and my Parents are still at home with Sammy and the rest of my aunts and uncles and cousins who came to visit.” Stiles alternates between looking at Derek’s chest like he can somehow see the ties of pack where his fingers are grouped, and his face.

Finally he sighs, “I bet that comes in handy, huh? Must be nice.” and his words must come out as melancholy and bitter as he feels, his own family’s whereabouts up in the air.

Derek’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder and it makes him look up from his lap. “I’m sure they’re fine. If they’re as resilient as you, they’re still alive.” Sadly, Stiles just nods and brings a hand up to rub at his eyes. Truthfully, he’s wiping away the small tears that had leaked from the corners, but he uses it as an excuse to show off how exponentially tired he’s grown.

Derek seems to understand and clears the candy away and they brush their teeth together again. It’s a nice habit, Stiles thinks as he counts brushstrokes while he watches Derek in the reflection of the mirror, the werewolf carefully brushing his own teeth, eyes thoughtful on the tube of toothpaste as he reads the back of it. He spits and rinses, shuffling around Derek in the doorway of the bathroom before he pulls the sheets back on the same side of the bed that they had been sitting on. Derek bypasses the candle and lets it stay there, still lit, to slide in the other side of the bed.

Stiles curls up on his side, facing Derek and lays, watching his profile where Derek stays on his back, his eyes tracing patterns on the ceiling. Finally, Derek turns his head and murmurs, “What were you doing in New York?”

“Attending NYU to study computer forensics.” and he has to smile at the way Derek’s face goes slack, disbelief evident in his wide eyes. He waits until Derek moves his head back to its original position, to speak once more. “Do you think we would’ve met? If… if it hadn’t had happened?”

The bed moves under Derek’s shrug and Stiles nods, because it was a big city, with a lot of people then, and even _they_ had been different people. He likes to think that he would’ve noticed the Adonis that is Derek walking around campus, but the fact is that they could’ve crossed paths several times and not known it.

He dozes off, only registering it when he’s jerking awake from a nightmare, his brain replaying the day’s events, of growls and crunches, squicks and pops. He feels the bed shift at his spasm and takes in a breath that makes that bruise on his ribs flare, thankful that Derek kept the candle lit when he blinks the room into focus.

“You okay?” Derek’s voice is thick, sleepy, and the shame at knowing he woke him makes tears slide from the corners of Stiles’ eyes. Hastily, he wipes them when Derek rolls onto his side to face him. “You don’t need to be ashamed.” he says, like it’s okay that Stiles can’t deal with this new world. Like it's okay for him to cry and be scared and have compete mental and emotional breakdowns for hours at a time. He says it like everything’s going to be alright, and Stiles almost loses the fragile hold he has on maintaining calm.

“I used to love apocalyptic movies, you know.” Stiles sniffs and swallows the rest of the tears, wiping his cheek against his pillow. “I mean, _Mad Max_ , _28 Days Later_ , _Zombieland_ …” he trails off, trying to remember more.

“It was dark, but I liked _Snowpiercer_.” Derek supplies and Stiles could sob in relief, that Derek’s trying to understand. Instead, he just moves his arm under the pillow, gets more comfortable and nods, his fist full of pillow.

“Even _Snowpiercer_. I thought, about how cool it was… I never thought it would happen, y’know?”

Derek nods, eyes blinking slowly. His breaths are slow, calm, and they lapse into a comfortable silence until Derek breaks it with gravel in his voice, “I liked the hypotheticals, you know, the fantasy of it. In my imagination,” and Stiles watches him lick his lips, tuck the sheet in a little tighter under his arm, “I was a badass.” they share a wry smile before Derek continues, his eyes going distant over Stiles’ shoulder.

“I wasn’t afraid of anything, I’d know what was right and what to stand up for and I’d know exactly where to go, and when, and I could keep everyone safe…” Derek’s voice breaks and he clears his throat, pushing another sigh out his nose, eyes closed tight for a few seconds. “And the reality is… I don’t know any of that, and I think it’s safe to say that we’re just as scared as you are. We’re all coming to grips with it and it may _feel_ lonely, but that doesn't mean that you’re actually alone, Stiles.”

It’s the most words Derek has said at one time and finally, Stiles lets himself break, sobbing silently into his pillow before Derek pulls him close and tucks his face into his neck, soothing sounds in his ear. He cries and cries until darkness closes in and he sleeps.

 

* * *

  


When he wakes up, the sun is shining behind the curtains still pulled shut, the candle’s long been burned out and Stiles’ whole body hurts. Derek’s nowhere in the room, but there’s a note waiting for him, taped to the door and Stiles groans as he maneuvers his way out of bed and shuffles over to it.

Stiles doesn’t remember ever seeing Derek’s writing, but even before he gets down to the D that’s hastily signed at the bottom, he knows it couldn’t be anyone else’s writing.

_Isaac and I are scouting the town and looting. Allison’s in room 8, stockpiling what we find and creating an inventory. You should drink some water and take it easy until I get back. Maybe you could help her? She’d like to meet you._

_D_

There’s a fresh bottle of water with a pair of aleve next to it on the desk and it takes an embarrassingly long time for Stiles to open it, hands bruised and scuffed from the day before. He sits for long minutes, slowly drinking the water, letting his stomach digest the drugs and beginning to work it into his bloodstream. Once the water is gone, he has no other excuse but to get up and change clothes and go in search of Room 8.

It’s warm and sunny outside, the sky clear of any clouds. His stomach twists when he sees that the bodies of the ghouls they killed yesterday are no longer there, but the blood splatters still remain on the cement. He jerks his eyes away from staring at them and instead turns, traversing the row of doors until he gets to the open door of Room 8.

The curtains are pulled back, the windows open, allowing the soft movement of the air to breeze through. He hangs back, just watching as Allison points with the end of her pen, counting, before scribbling something down in a notebook. He clears his throat so he doesn’t startle her and she turns, eyes wide while her fingers squeeze around the stick of a lollipop and pull it from her cheek.

“Stiles, hi.” she smiles then and even though she doesn’t have a speck of make-up on, her skin is almost flawless and her eyelashes are thick and curl prettily, framing her dark eyes. She has dimples that show themselves in the wake of her smile and Stiles is struck by how supremely unfair it is that he’s traveling with the most attractive people he’s ever seen. And Stiles watched _a lot_ of movies before The Reset; he _knows_ attractive.

He shoves his hands into the pockets of another pair of jeans he’s borrowed from House Number Four and rocks back on his heels, “It’s nice to put a face to the name.” he greets, nearly wincing at the levels of awkward. Finally, he tears his attention away from her and glances around the rest of the room: the bullets and guns they’ve amassed have been thrown on one of the beds, the drinks that’ll keep at room temperature are lined up on the desk and non-perishable food are on the other bed.

Allison points to the desk, a separate notebook laying atop the assorted bottles, and he shuffles inside the doorway to see it, “I haven’t made it to the drinks if you wanna help?” already, Stiles likes her. Not just because she’s nice to look at, but because he’s pretty sure they already met the day before, and she’s not even bringing that up. Allison is a Saint, he decides.

“Depends,” he tells her, finding a pen amidst the assorted items sprawled across the top of the dresser and giving an eyebrow to the snow globe there. “My hourly rate is two tootsie pops, preferably raspberry, but I can be persuaded with chocolate flavored, too.”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t say ‘cherry’.” she sticks the candy back in her cheek, turning and rustling through the bag he now sees to the side of the bed. Must be leftover Halloween candy, if the pumpkins on the design are anything to go by, “We’d’ve had to arm wrestle for ‘em.” she smiles around her stick, offering out a raspberry flavored candy. He takes it with a small smirk. “And Stiles?” she asks, even though he’s busy, flattening out his wrapper to try and find an Indian With A Star, uncaring if they never actually meant anything but a sign of Good Luck. His lolly is in his own cheek when he glances up, and he doesn’t even have the wrapper fully flattened yet, catching a wink of Allison’s eye before she turns with the whip of her braid as she goes back to her own counting, “I never lose.”

Well. Mark him down as scared _and_ horny. Apparently his libido is _just fine_ around the opposite sex when Derek isn’t in the general vicinity.

That wrapper, it turns out, doesn’t have his sign, but it’s surprisingly easy to be around Allison, even if they’re mostly silent, each counting.

“So what were you doing in New York?” he asks when they’re done and sitting in desk chairs they took from other rooms and are now outside, snacking on jerky and potato chips while the sun moves high. Stiles had wanted to snag the cheese spray to top off his potato chips with, but figured it might’ve grossed her out, so he skipped and stuck with regular potato chips and warm soda while they wait for Isaac and Derek to return.

She hums, taking long drags of tea before she puts it down, “I was actually following the Alpha that Derek ended up killing.” He pauses mid-chew to blink at her.

“What?” she wrinkles her nose at the way the bits of chip fly from his mouth. He takes a moment to chew and swallow before he speaks again, “What do you -- _what_?”

“So I guess Derek hasn’t really explained the dynamics of werewolf-ism to you?” she asks, tone light and a smirk pulling her lips wide.

“I didn’t even know he _was_ one until you saved us from that _thing_ with _claws_!” and if it weren’t for their conversation topic, Stiles might even feel like things are eerily back to normal, swinging his arms wide in a flailing manner.

Allison laughs at him behind her hand and with sparkling eyes, she gives him the CliffNotes version of pack hierarchy. “He was a Beta, before then. But the girl -- I think they must’ve been together before,” she gets somber and pauses in her own snacking, Stiles following suit, wanting to hear every word, “because it looked like Ennis was going to bite her, but then Derek started begging for her life and he had just... ripped his claws through her stomach.”

They both take a drink and Stiles watches as she huffs a deep sigh, “I got a shot off into his spine, and I’d like to think that’s why Derek was able to kill him so easily, but I don’t know.”

Fuck, Stiles had asked Derek the night before why he was in New York, and he’d let Derek dance around actually answering the question. Of course the guy had had a girlfriend before The Reset. Of course he wasn’t actually interested in him. Hello, obsession, thy name is Stiles.

“I watched through my scope as she died in his arms,” he watches as she blinks and wipes tears from her cheeks, making Stiles wish he could cry as pretty as her instead of the snotty mess he usually makes. She takes a big sigh in and smiles at him, her eyes still swimming in unshed tears, “and then he must’ve heard you, because he laid her down and went running.”

They sit there for a while after that, quieter as they finish their snacks. It’s as he’s taking a sip that Derek and Isaac walk out from behind the gas station and as soon as Derek spots them, he breaks out a wide grin that causes Stiles’ throat to spontaneously spasm and he spit-takes his mouthful of soda.

Allison’s snickering and he’s trying to glare her into stopping, but since she continues, his coughs must be taking some of the heat out of his glower. “Smooth.” she says and innocently waves at the two men, now crossing over the road and into the parking lot in front of them. “What’d you find?”

The question makes Derek laugh as he bypasses Stiles with a clap of his hand to his shoulder, shrugging off the backpack onto the floor of the room. “Can you believe it? More ghouls. Apparently they’re contained, unless they figure out how to open doors.” and Stiles’ mouth drops open as Derek pulls two bottles of water off the desk. He throws one at the man standing next to Stiles, also pulling off his own backpack, though he’s not paying attention to that, he’s more focused on Derek quoting pop culture.

“Was that a direct quote from _Jurassic Park_? Did you just...” he asks and Derek’s chugging down water, neck tilted back when he opens his eyes and looks down at Stiles, winking.

“Oh my God.” Stiles says in response, stunned.

“Stiles, I don’t think you met him yesterday,” that’s a nice way of saying he was indisposed during an emotional breakdown, “this is Isaac.” Allison introduces and Stiles tilts his head until he’s able to see him. He’s taller than Derek, which means he’s also taller than Stiles. And, of course, he’s attractive, because this is Stiles’ life, and apparently he gets zero breaks.

“Hey,” he greets with a swift nod of his chin. “Thanks for the help yesterday. I, uh, don’t remember a lot of it, but it was,” what, nice? Great? Surprising? “good timing.” wow, he really needs to work on his social skills, even in the wake of the apocalypse.

Isaac doesn’t seem to mind if his smirk and shrug is anything to go by, “You guys actually helped me out -- I didn’t even know they were here until you startled ‘em, so you saved me, and I saved you. We’re even.”

Meanwhile, Derek’s gone in and brought out two more chairs from the rooms and settles in next to Stiles, two bags of beef jerky set by his feet with a jar of queso dip balanced on a wide thigh and a bag of Fritos on the other. “You know those vaults you were talking about?” he directs to Allison and Stiles reaches over for his own cheese-covered Frito, watching as Derek easily lets him into his space, Isaac following suit. Stiles just barely catches her nod. “Isaac’s dad is an Overseer of one.”

Stiles has no idea what they’re even talking about, so he stays quiet and observes the way that Allison’s eyes widen and dart between Derek and Isaac, “Really?” she asks. “Do you know what number?”

Isaac crunches, shrugging, “Well, I was in the vault too, until they kicked me out.”

It goes quiet, save for Stiles’ eating of more chips. He’s _hungry_.

“They can _do_ that?” her question is soft and her eyes are big and round when Stiles glances between them. Isaac looks bashful, embarrassed.

“They can when they deem you too ‘ _problematic_ ’.” and Stiles can almost see the air quotes.

He clears his throat, taking a sip of his drink, “Anyone wanna clue a guy in here before he hurts himself in the dark?”

“Um,” Allison starts, but Isaac cuts her off. “Government officials knew when the planes were gonna fly.” and it hurts, hearing someone talk so blithely about their own country’s rulers, deciding the fate of the nation via poisoning its own people. “They built these vaults all over the States and invited only a few thousand to live in them. They’re kind of like the old Cold War bunkers, but bigger; they’re able to be self-sufficient for… _fuck,_  hundreds of years if need be.”

Stiles blinks, frowning. “Hundreds, but why--?” he can’t get the question out before Allison’s interrupting him this time, “They told us the mutations would happen.” and Stiles almost snaps his neck to look at her. “They explained that… that it was going to be a new beginning, and that the vaults would keep us safe and--”

“--and it was a _lie_ .” Isaac tells her, like he’s reminding her. They must’ve talked about it that morning or the day before. “I can’t, look, I  _know_ I can’t prove it but they’re doing some hinky tests down there. Hin-ky. Like… The Stanford Prison Experiment levels of hinky.”

“Okay,” Derek’s been so quiet, Stiles almost jumps at the sound of his voice. “But that experiment only lasted, what, a week?” Isaac nods in confirmation.

“Look, my dad wasn’t perfect,” Isaac sighs. “But that vault turned him into a monster. I was lucky I survived the two months until he chose to exile me.” he turns to nod at Allison, blue eyes genuine, “And if your dad’s in one, too, we need to locate it and get him out.”


End file.
